


Twenty-Two

by NerdyHalfling



Series: Smol Naddpod Things [13]
Category: Not Another D&D Podcast (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, First Kiss, First Meetings, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:46:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28150086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NerdyHalfling/pseuds/NerdyHalfling
Summary: "It feels like the perfect night (...) to fall in love with strangers."Hardwon Surefoot and Moonshine Cybin meet at a busy party.Inspired by the song 22 by Taylor Swift.
Relationships: Moonshine Cybin/Hardwon Surefoot
Series: Smol Naddpod Things [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1826578
Comments: 8
Kudos: 15





	Twenty-Two

Every night has the potential to change everything when you’re suddenly living in the big city and parties and people and adventures are so close you can practically taste them. Both Moonshine and Hardwon are experiencing that right now. They don’t think that life will change when they step outside their doors tonight, but the potential is there, and that’s just enough to push them out the doors, not that either of them really needs a push. 

Moonshine loves the company of others and would much rather surround herself with new friends than sit alone in the small dorm room she’s just moved into and Hardwon loathes his own company and would rather drown it out with alcohol and meaningless interactions with strangers. 

It’s nine-thirty when Moonshine leaves her dorm room. Her thick hair is worked into two braids that reach a little below her shoulders. She has barely left campus when she twirls around, taking in the sensation of the city around her with the amazement you can only display when you’ve lived your whole life in the middle of nowhere and the concept of skyscrapers and city lights is still new and exciting to you. 

Hardwon has already been drinking for a while when he leaves his apartment twenty minutes later. He isn’t new to cities, though Irondeep is much smaller than Gladeholm. Still, this city offers a sense of freedom, a distance from all the things he’d rather not dwell on. His apartment is crappy, and just a little more expensive than he can afford long term, but that’s a worry for another time, tonight is for drinking and partying. 

A girl named Triss, and her three roommates also named Triss, are hosting a party. Triss, one of the roommates, invited Moonshine earlier that same day, and Tris the host invited Hardwon at a party the night before. The two of them haven’t met before, but when Hardwon enters the apartment it’s only a question of time before they do. The apartment is huge, and there’s a hot tub just out back. It belongs to the landlord, but Tris explains that he’s happy to let them use it for parties and such. 

Moonshine was just talking to the Triss that invited her, a dark-skinned girl with a winning smile and deep brown eyes, but the girl left her to get more ice, so Moonshine is standing alone, looking around the room when Hardwon enters. She just has time for a fleeting thought of not fitting in to cross her mind before she registers movement by the door in her peripheral vision. She turns to see a tall, broad-shouldered man in a plaid shirt and worn-out jeans who looks just as out of place as she felt just a moment ago. 

“Hey there!” she says, her out feeling of displacement chased away in favor of talking to this new dude whose lips stretch into a smile when she approaches. 

“Hey,” he says, looking at the redhead. “I’m Hardwon.” 

“Pleasure to meet you Hardwon, I’m Moonshine Cybin!” 

It’s not long before they’re dancing, the thumping music that is too loud for any real conversation only really lends itself to dancing, so they take the opportunity. With Moonshine’s body pressed against his Hardwon forgets that he hoped to make out with a blonde girl named Triss tonight, and somehow Moonshine realizes that this guy is as miserable and lonely as she is, although they’d both rather keep that particular fact to themselves. 

In the breaks between dancing, and sometimes while dancing, they drink, and for a good while this is all they need: a beat that forces their hearts to match it, the pleasant buzz of a steady consumption of beer and somebody to dance with. After almost two hours when someone’s queued a slow, more quiet song Hardwon takes a step back, a swig of beer and says, “do you want to check out that hot tub?” Their interaction has grown past the crowded dance floor. 

It’s late enough that Moonshine should head home. She was only going to stop by for an hour or two as she has an assignment to work on tomorrow, but she looks into the eyes of her newfound companion and instead of saying that she has to go she makes a different suggestion. “I have a better idea. What do you say we get out of here?” 

And so as the evening steadily approaches midnight the pair finds themselves walking the streets of the city, and their hearts fall back into their own rhythms. Somehow this feels more in sync than matching the forced beat of the music that reverberated through their bodies half an hour before. 

Hardwon tells Moonshine that he’s here because he didn’t feel like Irondeep had more to offer him. He says it in a way that suggests he’s outgrown the smaller city, rather than that he feels impossibly small faced with his past, but he feels like Moonshine understands him anyway, because she smiles and takes his hand in hers. 

Moonshine tells Hardwon about her own home, a community of cabins, farms, and trailer homes surrounded by swamp landscape, and she paints it as the most idyllic place on earth. She talks about bathing in the crick and getting drunk in Ol’ Cobb’s backyard. 

“So what brings you here?” he asks. 

“Oh you know, I had to see what’s out here,” she says, neglecting, for now, to mention that she’s found her father and wants to get to know him. Perhaps because she isn’t even really sure that she wants to get to know Lucanus, or maybe just because there will be a time for all that later. 

They get burgers at a fast food joint and Moonshine says she knows the perfect place to go. With a skip in their steps she leads him to an apartment complex, and as she enters the key code she explains that she was at a party here last week. She holds her finger to her lips as they enter, letting the door slam shut behind them. Entirely too many stairs later they find themselves on the rooftop and Hardwon has to agree. This is the perfect place. 

They eat their burgers, then they sit shoulder to shoulder on the rooftop, talking about everything and nothing. Hardwon’s arm finds its way around Moonshine’s shoulder as the night grows later. Hardwon tells funny anecdotes, the small snippets of his life that make him seem as cool as he wants to be, leaving out the rest of the picture. Moonshine shares her own anecdotes and leaves out the sense of shame she sometimes hates herself for feeling among these fancy city folk. 

“I’d love to see it sometime,” Hardwon says after a story about Moonshine’s cousin Cooter at the Crick. It’s 2 am and that’s the first hint at a future either of them speaks that night. In the silence that follows his heartbeat rises, was it too much? Did he ruin the now-ness of the encounter? 

Moonshine kisses him and he feels in his heart that it was the right thing to say. 2 am on a rooftop is apparently the exact right situation to admit that you want to keep knowing someone you’ve just met. 

As the night drags on they dance again, slowly now, and to the tune of Moonshine’s humming. Then they sit and talk again. And only when the sun begins to rise do they leave the rooftop and walk together through the streets again, witnessing the city waking up. 

At 7 am they crash down on Hardwon’s bed. They’re both fully dressed, and with the sun shining in through the dirty window they fall asleep in each other’s arms. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Comments are super appreciated, and feel free to suggest other songs for more of these fics <3


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